YOGYAKARTA – As many as 20 student representatives from 18 colleges delivered the Youth Millennium Declaration Drive, Monday (24/10), in the Auditorium of Faculty of Medicine UGM. The declaration read by Arifah Nur Sadrina conveyed five key points which are agreed upon by the students as commitment to support the achievement of Millennium Development Goals’ acceleration (MDGs) of Indonesia year 2015.
The contents of the declaration include, a commitment to grow the entrepreneurial climate of small and medium enterprises by optimizing the utilization of local potentials, to popularize healthy lifestyle as early as possible, to balance the roles of men and women in society and government, to maximize the function of public health centers and posyandu (integrated services post) as first-line health services, especially in reducing maternal and child mortality. "And fifth is to improve the quality of education for Indonesian young generation," the student of international program in the Faculty said.
The reading of the declaration was witnessed directly by representatives from the UN, Abdurahaman Shebubakara, and Director of the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) Jakarta, Michele Zaccheo, as well as the Dean of Faculty of Medicine, Prof. dr. Ghufron Mukti Ali, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Committee Chairman of Youth Millennium Drive (Ymd), Chen Wing Seng, said that this activity is a movement to engage students and youth to participate more actively in supporting to build the country in achieving 8 targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
The eight MDG target indicators are to achieve education for all, to promote gender equality and women empowerment, to reduce children mortality, to improve maternal health, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other infectious diseases, to ensure environmental sustainability, and also to develop a global partnership for development.
According to Chen, a student can perform various activities that support the achievement of the MDGs targets based on the capacity of their respective disciplines. He cited that medical school students can do activities to reduce child mortality, to improve maternal health, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and infectious diseases. "Not only to educate, but we always make the initiative to conduct direct action and care in the community," he said.
Dean of the Faculty, Prof. dr. Ghufron Mukti Ali, M.Sc., Ph., D., expressed appreciation for the implementation of the declaration in supporting the achievement of the MDGs. According to Ghufron, this event is very important and useful to promote the achievement targets of MDGs to the wider community. "To achieve the MDG target, public awareness to be more productive and creative in promoting healthy behavior is needed. Youth and the university need to be involved in this matter," he said.
Although many people are pessimistic that Indonesia is difficult to achieve MDGs indicator targets by 2015, according to Ghufron, it is legitimate. Nevertheless, he said the government has implemented several measures to achieve these targets, supported by the involvement of students from an early age.